Phantasm
by ncfan
Summary: Her child never cries, and he always seems to know when she's coming.


I own nothing.

* * *

Her child never cries; not even did she hear a sound from him when he was born, still sticky and crumpled, though to be honest, Aredhel was already drifting into unconsciousness when he was born and could barely focus on anything beyond the news that she had been delivered of a son. Everything beyond that was darkness and silence. She was told later that she had slept for nearly three days.

Aredhel had awoken slowly, groggily, looking over to her right to see a pale face swimming in the darkness. Her sight cleared and Eöl smiled at her in relief, a rare genuine smile out of her grim-faced husband.

_So you are awake, Aredhel. How do you feel?_

_Tired. _And heavy and weak, like she was drifting in water and not lying in bed.

_Yes… I can imagine._

_Is that…_

_Yes. _A note of pride entered his voice as he turned his gaze to the tiny infant in his arms. _Our son._

She is told that her child always seems to know when she is coming, for he always sits up in his wicker bassinet and stares intently towards the door, dark eyes bright and wide. Aredhel has seen evidence of that, and sees it now, for when she shuts the door to the nursery and turns about, he is sitting up in the bassinet, staring at her expectantly. When she doesn't move fast enough for his liking, the child stretches his arms out to her. Aredhel smiles weakly, lifting her child up into her arms. She is weak and lightheaded still, but she does not sit, and instead stands with her week-old son wrapped close in her arms.

Sometimes, Aredhel likes to imagine that the expression on her son's face is a smile at seeing her. He rests his head on her collarbone, tiny body curled over her still-swollen, still-aching breast, his breathing soft and whistling, and she looks at the shadows falling over his face and imagines that he's smiling. Realistically, Aredhel knows that he is not. She can hear a voice in her head telling her, oh, don't be silly, of course week-old infants don't smile; they barely know they're alive yet. At remembrance of that voice, Aredhel frowns, knowing it should sound familiar, and knowing it for a kind, well-loved voice. And yet, she can't remember who told her that, only that they were well-loved, and getting only the hint of brown hair and sparkling eyes.

And sometimes, her son seems as insubstantial as the shadows lapping at her feet.

Eöl has refused to name him, and that does not help. His reasoning, given impatiently as though he ought not need to explain himself to her, is that how can he give their son a name when he can not yet know his nature? _Do not concern yourself with it, Aredhel. I will name him when I can know enough to give him a name that suits him._

That's a very backwards way of going about it, Aredhel can't help but think. She can't put her finger on exactly what's so backwards about it, but she holds her child in her arms, thinks this father is content to leave him nameless for untold years in the dark, and it angers her that her son could go unnamed for so long. And it frightens her. She doesn't want to admit it, but it frightens her. Without a name, the child isn't rooted into reality. Without a name, he could be swallowed in the dark, and she could lose him so easily.

_You barely seem real to me. _She strokes his cheek with one finger, meets the wide, dark gaze of her shadowed son. _Should so young a child have such clear-seeing eyes? Should he know when his mother is coming? Should you even recognize me, young as you are, well enough to want me to hold you, to prefer my company to that of your nurse?_

_Will I lose you?_

_Will you slip away into the gloom and the dusk and vanish like a puff of smoke? Is that all you are then, some faint apparition?_

_How can I keep you here, with me?_

Eöl will not give their son a name; he is unconcerned about the possibility of waking up one morning, finding the child nowhere, and having the shadows lurking beneath the green light as the only culprit. But Aredhel is not so trusting to safety, not so sure that the child will last long enough without a name to make his presence real. Without a name, his flesh is not flesh. It is only some construct of shadow and light, belying the pain it took to bear him, and the shadows can reclaim just as easily as they can give.

_Lómion, I name you. Son of Twilight, dusk-born._

The forbidden tongue rises easily to mind, even if she can not speak it aloud, even though Aredhel finds that even her thoughts slant towards that which is meet and fitting to be spoken aloud in Nan Elmoth. She imagines presenting her child to family whose faces are just out of reach of memory, whose names are near-hopelessly lost, and this will be the name she gives as his. If she ever gets the chance.

Aredhel casts her gaze about the nursery, to see that the door is still shut, and she is still alone with her son. "Lómion," she calls softly, and perhaps Aredhel imagines it only, but she thinks she sees recognition flash in the dark depths of his eyes. She smiles again, more gently than weakly this time. Her body aches for activity and movement, even weak as it is, she longs for the feel of wind on her face and in her hair, but when she looks into that tiny, beloved face, she tells herself that she can wait.

(But for how long?)

Lómion, Aredhel names her son. An apt name for one born in the silent gloom. With this name, she grounds him in the waking world, makes his flesh real and not a thing of stardust and fantasy. Makes him real, a creature of flesh, and not of shadow. Would that she could do the same for herself.


End file.
